Category: Members (Page 9 of 27)

Gordon was raised in Darien and attended the Darien public schools graduating in 1975.  He went on to Washington and Lee University earning a degree in economics which he took with him upon graduation to Sun Valley, Idaho to secure bartending and dishwashing jobs as a ski bum.  Reality set in and Gordon commenced a 40-year career in finance in New York City.  During his career he worked for a number of major international banks and several boutiques focused on advising and arranging trade and project finance in the developing world.  He worked across many different industries as well as different geographies which resulted in an interesting and dynamic career for him.  The business took him to roughly 40 different countries around the world, though not as glamorous as it might sound.  The markets he was active in were developing economies i.e. those where you didn’t drink the water.  Gordon retired in 2022.

Gordon married a Darien classmate, Holly Orr in 1987 and moved from New York to Rowayton for 5 years prior to migrating across Five Mile River to Darien.  They raised two children in Darien and enjoy racquet sports, golf, skiing and hiking.  They are long time members of The Tokeneke Club, and more recently picking up golf, Silvermine Golf Club.  Gordon and Holly are ADK-46ers, having climbed all 46 peaks in the Adirondacks exceeding 4000 feet.    

Peter grew up in the UK and received his B.A. and M.A. degrees in history from Trinity College, Cambridge University. He and Bettina, a former school teacher, moved from London in 1981 to Darien and in 1984 to Rowayton, where they raised their four children and where Bettina was for many years deeply involved with Shakespeare on the Sound, including as an actor in the first production.  They have five grandchildren, three of whom they are lucky enough to have living nearby in Rowayton, plus two in Newburyport, Massachusetts and there is another on the way in Brooklyn. They now spend part of the time in Scotland, where they have a home near St Andrews. Inspired by this proximity to the home of golf, Peter has recently taken up the game on the grounds that it’s never too late. 

Peter retired in 2017 after 35 years at Russell Reynolds Associates, based in New York and, for the last five years, in Singapore. In addition to his work in leadership consulting and executive search for clients, he was involved globally over many years in the management of the firm. Earlier he was with the merchant bank Arbuthnot Latham in London and New York and with Balfour Williamson, a subsidiary of Lloyds Bank International. He is Chair of the American Patrons of the National Library and Galleries of Scotland, was formerly Chair of the University of St Andrews American Foundation and of Restless Development USA, and was a board member of British American Business and the New Canaan Country School.

Steve Govoni was born in Manhattan and raised in Rye, close to the Playland Ice Casino, but playing hockey in a junior league founded by New York Rangers General Manager Emile Francis meant shlepping to rinks all over the metropolitan area. After graduating from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, Steve wrote 50 articles for true-crime magazines edited by his father and started his newspaper career at the Stamford Advocate as a reporter-photographer. At the Bergen Record, he won a Deadline Award for an investigative series on the fraudulent demise of several trucking companies in New York and New Jersey. He also won a year-long Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism at Columbia University, which led to positions at Financial World and The New York Times magazines.

As imminent parenthood approached, Steve joined Morgan Stanley’s global equity research department as a supervisory analyst and was eventually recruited away by SBC Warburg, which moved to Stamford in 1997 and morphed into what is now UBS.

After his wife Kate died from a botched allergy shot in a doctor’s office with her son nearby, Steve became the founding president of the Connecticut Center for Patient Safety, a grassroots organization devoted to putting a human face on preventable medical error.

He also served on the board of the New York Financial Writers Association. In 2006, Steve moved to the “buy side” of financial services, first with the marketing department of Lord Abbett, then Virtus Investment Partners, where he retired in September 2023.

After 25 years in Rowayton, he sold his house to a 31-year-old cryptocurrency executive (in dollars). He and his wife Bobbi Arnold, a financial manager with Legal Services of the Hudson Valley, now live in Silvermine. In addition to hockey, Steve’s interests include golf (with a sense of humor), soccer, photography, theater, film, and art, all of which help explain why he sold the boat he moored at the Norwalk Yacht Club.

Scott grew up in Westport, CT and Winnetka, IL

He graduated from Cornell in 1980 with a BA in Economics and graduated from Northwestern in 1987 with an MBA.

Scott worked in Banking and on Wallstreet for 43 years, first as a lending officer and then in sales and trading of Convertible and High Yield bonds.  He retired August 31st of this year and now every day is a Saturday!

Scott has 3 children, Kelsey, Jay and Leigh, who have all graduated college and are launched. Karen, his wife, is a Pastor who disciples women.  

Scott loves to sail and race one-design sailboats. He is a flag officer at the Noroton Yacht Club and is working to grow adult sailing.  His second passion is skiing. He looks forward to swiping his IKON pass often this winter.

Scott often says, “my finest days are spent wearing gloves.”  This means time on the water sailing, at the mountain skiing, or in the yard working.

Scott looks forward to being active and exploring.

Wim is a recently retired general manager of private yacht clubs, President of Rascal-Sailing LLC based in Darien CT which provides training for recreational boaters and he is the former Director of Training and Education for Landfall Navigation in Stamford, CT.   He holds a USCG Captains License, and is a US Sailing certified instructor at Sound Sailing Center in Norwalk, CT.

Tom Mullaney was born in Sedalia, MO in 1955 and grew up in Darien from 1962 to 1969. During his time in Darien, he was not caught once by the Darien Police Department for his various delinquent activities, a record of true accomplishment.

After graduating from New Trier High School in Chicago, Tom went to Princeton, where he was President of his class and Chairman of the University Honor Committee. After a one-year stint in brand management for Procter and Gamble, Tom got his MBA from Harvard and joined McKinsey and Company upon graduation.

Tom left McKinsey for the first of a series of entrepreneurial ventures: the creation of one of the first Urgent Care chains in the United States in 1984. Despite treating nearly 1000 patients a day, the concept was way ahead of its time and was sold to several hospitals around the United States, making Tom wiser but not richer.

Today Tom leads the Restructuring Practice for Jones Lang LaSalle, an NYSE company that acquired Tom’s last entrepreneurial venture in 2016 after a spirited bidding war with CBRE: a fitting conclusion to an otherwise modestly profitable history of start-ups on Tom’s part.

Tom and his wife Amelia live in Darien and Santa Barbara, CA, where they try to keep up with six children, two horses and two dogs. After a long career of auto racing in SCCA and VARA (including wins at every major track in the Western United States with his beloved Lotus Elan), Tom now is working assiduously on his pickleball, paddle tennis and tennis games, including regular losses at major courts such as Cherry Lawn, Ox Ridge and Tokeneke Club.

Tom has had a long history of charitable involvement, including serving as a Board Member of The Urban League of Sacramento, Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Laguna Blanca School, and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Music Academy of The West. He looks forward to helping DMA continue to build on its impressive record of community involvement.

Ned Lewis was born and raised in Philadelphia and Chester County PA. He graduated from Great Valley High School and went on to receive a BA in International Affairs and Russian language at Lafayette College. He graduated from Temple Law School and was commissioned in the U.S. Army Military Intelligence branch, and rose to the rank of Captain. He began his legal career at a law firm in Pennsylvania and was then VP and General Counsel for Arco Chemical Co., Borg Warner Companies in Chicago and now is Corporation Counsel and Ethics officer at Spellman High Voltage Electronics in Long Island. He was an associate professor in the Pace-Lubin MBA program in NYC. He is an ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church.

He is married to Liz Bacon, his wife of 30+ years and proud father of their two daughters Kate and Caroline Lewis. Ned and Liz are active members of St. Luke’s Parish in Darien and members of the Noroton Yacht Club. One of Ned’s most prized possessions is a 1951 Farmall Cub tractor that currently occupies a bay in his garage and is used to plow his driveway on snowy Darien days. 

12/12/23

My wife of 41 years, Avery, and I split our time between Rowayton and Park City, UT.  Avery and I raised our children (Dan – 35 and Kelsey – 33) in Darien, having become “Darien expats” when we sold our house on Nickerson Lane in 2019.  I grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles, earned my BA in 1980 at UC Santa Barbara and, after a couple years each of living in Vail Colorado then working in commercial banking in CT, I earned my MBA in Finance in 1987 at Columbia Graduate School of Business.  

After business school I spent my career in investment management, initially at Alliance Capital Management and then at PPM America, focusing on corporate and structured finance private investments.  In 2004 I transitioned to special opportunities investment management to focus on transactions backed by distressed assets, loan pools, finance receivables, aircraft and ships.  After working at two predecessor firms, I was a partner at Atalaya Capital Management from 2011 until retiring in 2018.  I subsequently served as a senior advisor to Atalaya until 2022 and remain close to the firm. 

Outside of investing, I serve on the board of an HOA in Park City, UT and am president of an HOA in Santa Monica, CA.  Given the locale of our second home, it may come as no surprise that I love to downhill ski, but also just getting outdoors to exercise – nordic skiing, long distance running and cycling.  I struggle at golf as I have no inherent talent, and I am enthusiastic but mediocre at racquet sports.

Tom Igoe was born in St. Louis, Mo., in 1947 and grew up in the suburb of Webster Groves. He graduated from St. Louis Priory School in 1965, where he was editor-in-chief of the school newspaper and was active in intramural sports. He graduated from Yale University in 1969 with a B.A. in history and was a member of the Yale Whiffenpoofs, a storied acapella singing group dating back to 1909. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia in 1972. He joined Reid & Priest in New York as an associate and rose to chairman in 1994. In 1997, Reid & Priest merged with Thelen Marrin (a San Francisco-based law firm), and Tom became vice chairman and later chairman of the combined firm. He then became president and CEO of MPC Insurance, a captive insurer providing large national law firms with professional liability insurance coverage and related services. He served with MPC until retiring in 2017. Tom and his wife Susan have lived in Darien since 1979 and have a son who lives in New Haven. Tom is currently board chairman of Benhaven, Inc., a nonprofit serving the needs of autistic children and adults in south central Connecticut and also serves on the boards of several other nonprofit organizations. His interests include the arts, photography, reading, writing, traveling, hiking, cross-country skiing, major league baseball and UConn Huskies basketball.

Duncan Rowland was raised in Rowayton in the 40’s and 50’s. Swimming and sailing were his major sports activities and he also played the cello in various venues around the area including The Connecticut State Orchestra his junior and senior years in High School.  He was graduated from Bethany College where he started the college swim team and was Co-Captain all 4 years.  His business career began at the Hanover Bank, NYC at which time he also earned an MBA from NYU at night.  After a few years in commercial banking, Duncan moved to the Investment side of the business as an institutional Equity salesman.  He worked for Loeb Rhoades, Lehman Brothers, Prudential Bache, Brown Brothers and Alex. Brown & Sons until 2007.  He was posted for various periods in NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, and finally Greenwich. Currently he owns and manages Rowayton Investment Advisors which focuses on covered-call stock investing.

After college he married his college sweetheart and they had 2 children.  She passed away suddenly at age 41 of a brain aneurism; this happened shortly after the family moved to San Francisco because Duncan was hired to run the West Coast Institutional Equity operation of Lehman Brothers. The firm was absorbed by Shearson and Duncan moved back East to Darien. Here he met and married Kathie Gordon Ackerman.  They have been married for 36 years and together have 5 children , 10 Grandchildren and a Great Granddaughter due next February.  They have lived in Darien and Rowayton.   Duncan is a member of Wee Burn where he played golf for many years

Mike has lived his entire life in Fairfield County, initially in Redding and  the last over 30 years in Bethel. He received his bachelor’s degree in  Mechanical Engineering, magna cum laude, from the University of  Bridgeport in 1988 and an MBA in Finance from the Leonard N. Stern  School of Business at NYU in 1999. Mike worked about 10 years for the  Sikorsky Aircraft subsidiary of United Technologies Corp where he  designed and developed helicopter rotor systems. His last 25 years have  been spent in various financial and business oversight capacities  including investment banking and private equity acquisitions across a  variety of industries, in Corporate Ventures at Union Carbide, and more  recently in asset management developed a proprietary algorithmic high  frequency trading program. He currently manages a full spectrum of  family investment activities along with other financial and various responsibilities through his family office.

Mike’s late father-in-law,  Howard “Tom” Thompson was a long-time member of the DMA (then  SMA), including a former President. Mike and his wife Cynthia, who grew  up in Darien, have two children in the Boston area, their son, a biologist,  and daughter, who is currently in grad school and a New England  Patriots cheerleader since the team’s last Super Bowl win with Tom  Brady in 2018. Mike has been a member of the CT Hedge Fund  Association for a number of years and enjoys vintage and newer sports  cars, boating, and jogging with his three dogs.

Steven grew up and attended school in Manchester, England. His siblings and mother still reside in the U.K. (London area) and he tries to visit as often as practical. After a brief stint with Nat West bank in the U.K. he moved to Denmark in his mid 20’s where he began a career in banking, specifically within Foreign Exchange, trading and sales. After close to five years in the Copenhagen area an opportunity arose to take an ex-pat position in the New York office of one of the largest banks in Denmark, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The initially limited ex-pat stint led to a permanent stay in the U.S. and Steven became a proud citizen in 2010. Having moved to Darien with his wife in 1996 they raised two daughters, both of whom went through the public school system in town and are now young adults making their way in New York City.

Steven is a keen golfer playing mostly at the public courses in our area. Sailing is another interest that he has picked up later in life and the family are members of Stamford Yacht Club. Paddle tennis, Pickleball and a daily three mile brisk walk round out the regular activities, though skiing (downhill and cross-country) feature from time to time. Travel, especially to the U.K. and Scandinavia to catch up with friends and family, is always a treat.